That Which is Unexpected: The Gods' Executioner Series, #1

Prolegomenon

I’d like to acknowledge something that seems to confuse some of my readers. Whenever you encounter four stars centered on their own line like this:

****

The book is going into a dream sequence or memory or a dream sequence that is a memory. I’m not a fan of completely linear storylines so I use with this format because it allows me to explain the background and character history without dumping all of the information at the beginning and skipping forward by years in time. You will also notice that there is a shift in narrative from present to past tense for these situations.

When the memory or dream ends and the book returns to the main story, you will see the four centered stars again and the narrative switches back to present tense.

You will also sometimes see centered ellipses like so:

…

This is to indicate a skip in time, usually in between chapters, or to skip mundane events.

Now that the explanations are out of the way, on to the story.

A.L. Bridges

Chapter 1: Pinch Me

Usually, I'm not the party going type.

Usually.

That is unless my best friend Jason drags my ass out of our apartment. He tells me about a party that he got invited to by some sorority chick that is in his English class. The party is at the girl's friend's house on Lake Washington.

No sooner than I am contemplating going, Jason and I are suddenly there, ringing the doorbell of the house. Sorority chick answers the door and we follow her into the large living room where she introduces us to the hostess, Natasha. Natasha is cute with eastern European features and a great body that is 5’4" and slender, with clear green eyes and blonde curls that stop just above her shoulders. As sorority chick is talking, something about Jason and English class, Natasha can't keep her eyes off me.

Now, I don't consider myself to be an unattractive guy. I'm twenty years old and while I’m not entirely sure what ethnicity I am, my skin is naturally tan and I have the facial structure of a Caucasian male. I’m just over 6'1 and 175 lbs. of toned muscle, but not exactly ripped; straight brown hair, and hazel eyes that are complemented by my long eyelashes. My nose is average size, my cheeks and jawline aren’t exactly chiseled and, much to my fervor, I often get mistaken for being younger than I actually am. At this point some of you may be saying, Why Cole, it sounds like your features could be described with two words that would compare them to an infantile state, Yes, I know. Don’t say it. I am completely aware and I can’t stand being described by those two words. Jason has always called it my Cougar Trap" and gave me the nickname CT. Given that my name is Cole Treyfair, the nickname is entirely appropriate. Only a handful of people know the true meaning behind it. I just thank god for fake identification so that I can follow Jason into bars. Despite the fact that we are the same age, Jason never gets carded… Bastard.

While I may not be unattractive, I have hardly had the luck with women that Jason has, which is understandable if you take into consideration the fact that he looks like a blonde, blue-eyed, 6’4 version of Mark Antony (you know, minus the self-evisceration and before that harpy Cleopatra got a hold on him); i.e. curly hair, sharp regal features, and a face that looks like it was carved from stone. Jason has been my best friend since we were fourteen so I have been around for his entire sexual career, a career that is in the high double digits. He likes to claim that it all started with my uncle’s maid Lupita when he was fourteen and that he seduced her without so much as a word," because he doesn’t speak Spanish. ‘Claim’ being the keyword in that sentence as my uncle didn’t have a maid named Lupita. My uncle has only ever had one Hispanic maid named Tia and, as far as I can tell, she only speaks English.

Despite having such a high count, Jason isn’t the, she was blackout drunk and didn’t know what she was doing so she slept with me, type of guy. He is more of the I’m going to walk down the street and steal your girlfriend/wife, type of guy. Jason always has my back as a wingman, which is why I found it strange that, when he noticed Natasha’s gaze, he desperately dragged out the conversation. Natasha starts leading me out onto the back patio until I hear Jason desperately call out, Cole, wait! Natasha stops, slowly turns, and gives Jason a malicious glare.

Natasha and I suddenly appear on a swinging outdoor futon, gazing up at a vast amount of stars with hues of blues and greens that I’ve never seen before. The only sound is that of soothing background music that I can’t quite identify. I feel the warmth of Natasha’s body emanating on my right arm. I turn my head towards her and give her a soft kiss, noticing our lack of clothing in the process. As I start to question it, Natasha kisses me back and I’m strangely overcome with a wave of joy and relief.

Are you having a nice time? Natasha slyly asks.

Yeah, I am, I reply. Everything just feels right with you in my arms,

Well, I’m glad, Natasha tells me with a grin, but then her face contorts to a look of concern. But you know, you can’t run from reality. Despite the things that have happened and even if some really unpleasant things may be in store for you, you can’t run away,

What do you mea— I start to ask when the background music became clearer and I finally hear it.

The song ‘Pinch Me’ by the Barenaked Ladies is playing.

****

Chapter 2: What a way to start the day

I’m startled awake by my phone, the ringtone coincidentally being ‘Pinch Me’.

That’s right…

Jason is dead.

I should have realized that was a dream long before now. I sit up and swing my legs over the side of my bed. I wake my phone from sleep mode to see that it is 11:15pm on Wednesday, May 1st. I have a new message and a missed call, both from Sara. I reach for the highlighter orange bottle on my nightstand, tap out a little blue pill that I have taken for ADD since I was a kid, and pop it into my mouth because I know that I won’t be getting back to sleep. I know it is just a psychophysiological response based on the color, but I swear it tastes like blueberries. I grab the bottle of vodka off of my night stand and take a swig to wash down the pill.

I reach for my phone to call Sara back and it starts ringing the moment my fingers brush against the screen. That same damn ringtone… I’ll have to remember to change it later.

Hello? I ask, already knowing that it’s Sara.

The moment she starts talking I immediately become alert, mainly because she is crying so hard that she is hyperventilating so I can only make out every other syllable.

C..le? Un.. Eri.. is ..ed, ..le, the strangled sounds coming from Sara make it hard to tell that it is even her.

Sara? I can’t tell what you’re saying. Slow down, breathe and then try again, I tell her. I listen to her breathe deeply over the phone for a few seconds before she continues.

Cole, Uncle Eric is dead, Cheza manages.

The phone slips out of my hand and thumps onto the floor.

Well, this day just keeps getting better.

…

Chapter 3: Reminiscence

I’ve already changed your flight home in two weeks for Rei’s graduation and birthday to a flight for today at 1 am, Sara tells me after taking the phone away from a crying and choked up Cheza.

Alright I’ll see you soon, I reply while hopping around, trying to put on my jeans.

Wait! I shout into the phone while falling over.

COLE!? COLE!? ARE YOU ALRIGHT!? TALK TO ME COLE! I hear Sara frantically yelling through the speaker. I’m fine Sara. I just fell over trying to put on my jeans.

Thank the gods. If they had gotten you too… Sara says before trailing off. What the hell does she mean by that? Anyway, do you need something? You said wait just before you fell over putting on your jeans, probably while hopping around like an idiot.

She knows too much…

Is Kira there? I ask.

No, she is flying home tonight from Peru, Sara replies.

No big surprise there. Kira was rarely home despite being married to Eric. I could probably count the number of times I’d seen her on one hand.

Alright, I’ll see you guys in a few hours, I say and press the end call button on my phone.

I get up and walk to the front door, pausing for a few moments in front of the room that has been vacant for nearly five months. I’m unable to shake thoughts of Jason or the memories of that dream from my head. I’m out the door (wearing jeans, a white t-shirt, and my grey leather jacket that Cheza gave me for my eighteenth birthday, which is my favorite jacket despite having a broken zipper) with a duffle bag full of clothes and at SeaTac airport in less than an hour—just one of the benefits of having an apartment in north Seattle.

When sitting at the terminal waiting for your flight without headphones because your stupid ass forgot them, there is not a whole lot to do. I pull out my phone and look at the text I had received nearly two days ago:

Happy Birthday Cole! Sorry for the text but the reception is shit here in Greenland. I’ll see you in a few weeks for Chezarei’s birthday and graduation.

–Uncle Eric

****

Uncle Eric was in his early forties, Hispanic, about six feet tall with green eyes, short black hair, chiseled good looks, and a physique that implied he should be acting in a Bond film instead of working as a journalist. He looked enough like the character Nathan Drake from Naughty Dog’s Uncharted series for me to think that a video game had been released based on the exploits of Uncle Eric’s secret life. I first met Uncle Eric at my mother’s funeral when I was five years old. I don’t remember it all that well, but I do remember him walking over to where I sat quietly in the corner. He handed me an assorted bag of candy while telling me that everything was going to be okay and that I was going to live with him.

Eric Vaele wasn’t actually my uncle. He was just a friend of my mother’s and my godfather. I never met my father so Uncle Eric was as close to a father as I was ever going to have, and he knew it. The only reason I called him Uncle Eric is because he insisted upon it after I called him dad once and he freaked out.

In addition to playing the part of dad/uncle, Uncle Eric was also my sword fighting instructor and we would fence semi-regularly in the basement. Despite being really busy working as a journalist for Natural Geographic, he always tried to make time for me and my younger sister Chezarei (whom I call Cheza). Now, Cheza obviously isn’t my real sister. She came home with Uncle Eric after one of his business trips when I was ten years old. While Uncle Eric only took over as a guardian for me (allowing me to legally keep my last name), he adopted Cheza so she took on his last name of Vaele.

Despite being a journalist, Uncle Eric was quite well off financially (which only added evidence to my ‘secret life’ theory). He lived in a large modern style house that had been built against a cliff side in an L-shape with the small end touching the cliff face. Although the house sat on a fifty acre plot, only five acres were fenced in with six foot high brick fencing that opened only for the wrought iron gate that separated the one hundred yards of driveway from the rest of the road.

Eric employed two maids: Tia and Sara. Tia was the head maid and ran the house, while Sara was more of a nanny and acted as an older sister to Cheza and I. Sara took care of us and even tutored us if we needed it. She’s still serious, but tends to geek out about some things. Sara is half Scottish, half Indian, 5’6 tall, slender with black hair that stops at mid-neck level, and green eyes that are noticeable through her square-frame glasses. At a 32A, Jason described her as a little lacking in the bust department, but she more than makes up for it with that ‘Onii-chan’ feel."

I think you mean ‘Onee-chan’, not ‘Onii-chan’, I told him.

No, I’m pretty sure it’s Onii-chan, he said.

Oh really? I replied. Because last I checked, she is female and according to Yuuko-sensei, Onii is used for older brothers.

I thought oni meant demon…

Jason has this… had this rather extraordinary ability to remember bits about everything he came across but he didn’t have the attention span to get the details. I always described him as a jack of all trades but a master of none.

Sara was also like a substitute mother for me when I first moved into my uncle’s house. Hard thing to ask of a sixteen year old but looking back, I say she did a pretty good job. I used to tell people that she was my mom, just to see the looks on their faces when they work out that Sara can’t be more than eleven years older than me. She became the caring and supportive older sister that she is today, when I was seven years old.

****

Flight 303 non-stop to Phoenix is now boarding those with ‘preferred members’ cards.

Chapter 4: Do we even like Funions?

After settling into seat 5C, I start to think about my Uncle Eric and my family again.

****

In addition to being head maid, Tia was also my and Cheza’s close quarters combat instructor in the fully padded gym that is in the house’s basement. I say my and Cheza’s but it’s really more like she is just my combat instructor. As far as I’ve seen, the only thing Tia instructs Cheza in is cardio kickboxing, while my instruction is more the ‘full contact sparring’ type of instruction. This sounds like an awesome situation, especially if one takes into consideration the fact that Tia is a Latina bombshell. Tia looks to be somewhere around her early thirties, 5’7" with long legs, brown eyes, black hair that falls in a sheet that hits her shoulder blades, facial features that look almost regal, and a seductive smile that is almost constantly on her face. With her looking like Penelope Cruz with longer legs and darker hair (bust size at a 34C is about right though), it is understandable why Jason lies about having slept with her… lied.

So full contact sparring sounds great right? I mean, it’s like a teenage male’s wet dream to be able to have full body contact with a woman like that, while getting all sweaty and possibly rolling around on the ground, right!? Wrong. It would only be great if I was a hardcore masochist, but then I’d lose consciousness five minutes into the lesson with a large amount of fluid covering the inside of my pants.

But it is full contact sparring right? Like FULL contact? Jason asked me while we were on the subject one day when we were fifteen.

So just grab her tit! She seemed to enjoy it when I did it! He told me.

I thought you slept with Lupita, I sarcastically replied.

Right, her too! Jason exclaimed. Anyway, just try it!

So of course being a hormone driven fifteen year old male, I tried. I thought I’d be smooth and act like I tripped in front of her with my hands out stretched.

‘Great in theory, terrible in execution,’ I thought as she glided to the side and dropped an elbow into my back.

As I rolled over and stared up while trying to work out a hostage negotiation with my lungs to exchange wind for CO2, she just smiled down at me with that seductive little smile of hers and said I’m sorry, I thought you were trying to get a jump start on today’s lesson! Tia sat me up and started tenderly rubbing the spot on my back that her elbow had recently impaled, while saying You poor thing. There we go. Feel better? leaving me with the assumption that maybe she didn’t know what I was up to.

I told Jason the next day during biology class and he whispered back with Okay new plan! While sparring, start to go in for a single leg sweep and when you go to grab her shoulders, just move one of your hands down a few inches and boom! Enterprise, we have made contact with alien life… wait, I don’t think they ever said that in Star Trek… let me try again. Just move one of your hands down a few inches and boom! These are not the droids you’re looking for! Jason exclaimed.

THAT’S NOT EVEN THE SAME SERIES! I shouted back at him before realizing the setting of our conversation. Mr. Lewis just looked at us with an incredulous stare, jaw agape until he sighed and shook his head slowly.

Mr. Treyfair, you are correct, that is not the same series. Thus, on the next test, you get two bonus points while Mr. Mathews gets docked two points regardless of his actual score. Congratulations Mr. Mathews! You have the unique opportunity to actually get an F- on the next test! I’m honestly hoping that you don’t show up that day so I can be the first teacher to ever give a student an F-! Mr. Lewis said.

Jason responded by standing up and taking a bow while I was too fazed by the fact that Mr. Lewis could hear us over the sound of his voice when we were whispering in the middle of the room. Come test day, Jason actually did get an F- and he celebrated by having the test and a copy framed. Mr. Lewis still had that test hanging up on his wall when we graduated.

The next day I tried out Jason’s plan and it worked! The only problem was that I was so focused on grabbing Tia’s right breast that I missed her left fist flying straight towards my temple. That was the one and only time I had ever been knocked out while sparring with her.

I regained consciousness to a pounding head, a cold, wet sensation on my forehead, a warm wet sensation on the back of my head, and a melodic sound nearby. As I took stock of my surroundings, I realized that the cold sensation was a wet towel, and the warm sensation was… sweat? I cracked my eyes open enough so that I could just barely see, but not enough to be noticeable to most people. I realized that my head was in Tia’s lap, the sound was her humming something that sounded like a folk song, and she was stroking my hair while looking down at me with her seductive little smile.

You’re getting better at this, Tia told me. If I wasn’t looking right at you, I wouldn’t be able to tell that you are awake. Now tell me about your situation.

"Well I was